'The Pope and Mussolini,' by David I. Kertzer
By David D'Arcy
The Pope and Mussolini The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe By David I. Kertzer (Penguin; 549 pages; $32) As Benito Mussolini consolidated power in the 1930s, forging alliances with Hitler's Germany and invading Ethiopia in a vainglorious bid for a new Roman Empire, the only consolation for Italians might have been that God was on their side. This was anything but the case, writes David I. Kertzer, a Brown professor, in his captivating study of the uneasy bond between Pope Pius XI and Il Duce. Each man mistrusted the other, but the reclusive pope feared the march of communism, Protestantism and anything modern. Mussolini's roots were in strident anticlericalism, yet church support in Catholic Italy was crucial for tightening his grip. In exchange for fiery anticommunism and crucial backing of Vatican policy goals, Italian Fascism got a pass from a silent church on its political monopoly. Long before the war with Britain and France started in 1939 (when Pius XI died), democracy in Italy was lost, along with many lives, with far more to come. If politics is about holding one's nose while interests are served, the stench here is overpowering. You won't learn about steel production or railroad strikes from Kertzer, but you will learn what men in power did and failed to do. The story begins in 1922, when Italy was stumbling in the wake of World War I's devastation. Benito Mussolini, once an anti-Catholic socialist (named for the Church-hating Benito Juarez), leveraged nationalism into mass thuggery and found that he needed the acquiescence of the Catholic Church to get Italians' approval. In that same year, cardinals in Rome elected an improbable next pope, Achille Ratti, son of a silk factory manager, a librarian for most of his priesthood. Ratti's lifelong hobby was hiking in the mountains, hence the nickname whispered at the Vatican, "the mountaineer." This reclusive loner chosen to lead millions of Catholics at a moment of tremendous political, technological and sexual upheaval looked at the threats facing the traditional church and dug in his heels. He also looked toward the brash, coarse Mussolini. The Vicar of Christ found an unlikely enforcer in the man with a libido that Silvio Berlusconi might envy, plus a gaggle of illegitimate children. The Vatican looked the other way when Mussolini (whose children weren't baptized then) had henchmen murder rivals and terrorize priests. The Vatican and the Italian government did finally recognize each other diplomatically during Pius XI's papacy, an official achievement that helped Mussolini look like a statesman, but some details of their bond mimic pageantry from bad operettas - the Vatican sought a ban on women's gymnastics (too erotic), and the handshake was also banned in Italy, in favor of the Fascist straight-arm salute. King Victor Emmanuel III, barely 5 feet tall, was Il Duce's walking rubber stamp. The pope's fears went beyond communism and into the realm of paranoia - or was it just his unease with the modern world? Besides bathing suits and women's cleavage, Pius XI was obsessed by an insidious force in Italy - Protestantism, which never took root in the Reformation and was practiced by a mere 135,000 of 42 million Italians, 37,000 of whom were foreigners. For some context, Italy had only 48,000 Jews in the 1930s, which kept neither the state nor the church from attacking them. By the 1930s, as Mussolini eliminated all opposition, he sought the pope's endorsement for a grand adventure, the 1935 invasion of Ethiopia. Although the League of Nations and the pope (in private) opposed the gambit - in which Italian planes slaughtered civilians with poison gas and bombs - priests blessed battle-ready soldiers. "Italy finally has her empire," Mussolini declared.
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